Salon Top Tips

Creating a niche product or service that will also cater to the needs of a broad range of people is the key to success for any business. By targeting your offerings in this way, your company will be able to capture a wide client base and, as a result, continue to grow and thrive.

When it comes to your offerings, the sky’s the limit. Everyone has to start somewhere, but once you have established your area of expertise, or the product or service that your clients favour most, begin to think about ways in which this can be expanded to suit both client and business needs. When my brothers and myself founded Kebelo in 2010, we launched with a unique concept in the haircare industry, Kebelo ADVANTAGE, which provides smooth and frizz-free hair in one hour. As the brand went from strength to strength, we saw the opportunity to capitalise on this success and offer our loyal clients and salons something new, which perfectly complemented our existing offerings. This led us to introduce an innovative colour service, Kebelo BONDAGE, and today we now offer these services alongside a collection of four prescriptive retail ranges. While our products and services offer something for different client’s varying needs, we wanted to make sure that all of these concepts were united in theme – that of creating beautiful, smooth and healthy hair, and that this was clear to every single one of our clients and the salons we work with. If you’re looking to expand your offerings, find a common thread and make sure that everything links together to ensure that you don’t confuse your clients and create a strong, recognisable brand with clear intentions and purpose.

To appeal to the greatest number of potential clients, make sure that you educate your customers about the many benefits of your product or service, focusing on the areas that appeal to a particular client’s wants and needs. Start by making a list of everything that your product or service offers and think about the people who be most receptive to these points. If your product uses only natural ingredients, look to engage with audiences that favour a more natural approach to their haircare routine. People on a budget may be interested to know if a service you offer is more affordable than it seems, and clients with a particular hair type or texture will want to hear all about a product or service that will bring them one step closer to achieving their ideal style.

After you have identified every potential customer base, make it your mission to reach them. This could be through a consultation or chat with a stylist at the salon (after all, a client knows that their stylist is the best person to educate them about what it best for their hair) or through online engagement, such as social media channels or regular e-newsletters. If your clients don’t know about the many benefits of a product or service, then they can’t get on board with it, so look for opportunities to share information that will encourage them to find out more.

While you should always aim to promote your product or service to the many different customers that will benefit from it, it’s also important to recognise that no business can be all things to all people. By trying to appeal to absolutely every market, your brand message – which is essentially the very thing that will work to gain your clients – can become diluted and potentially lost, leading to the reverse of what you are trying to achieve. Concentrating your efforts on the customers who will be most receptive to your message, rather than trying to appeal to clients who are less likely to fall into your target market, will ensure that you are spending your valuable time on the clients who will be most likely to become loyal in the longer term. Essentially, using the very core of marketing practice – recognising a customer need and finding a way to fulfil that need – will ensure that you appeal to the broadest possible client base and reap the subsequent rewards.

6/2/2016